No Prune! Bending branches not cutting, tying not pruning, weighting not sawing

[Trav]

For those who don’t want to waste all that good growth, and those of you who have tried this and would like to correct me: you’re in the right place! For those of you who hate dried plums: I guess you’re welcome, but I’m not sure you’ll get much support here.

I’ve got many more to post, but here is my big success story, but it’s short term success and will need some pruning now, but I’m doing as little as possible.

All of these photos are from apple trees with 1-2 seasons of growth, showing what you can get if you graft and tie down as opposed to pruning. I was gone for years after this and will show you the follow-up shots once I finish the shaping for this year.

These are year old grafts, and just a few weeks before the next photo.

And this one is a whacky tree, but has been from the get go, it was a wild one that I found and I didn’t want to prune it too sparsely, so it’s got lots of whacky branches, and is completely frame-worked (every branch is grafted to) but this one has the new shaping, and current photos too.

And here it is as of today, yes I know the center is really crazy and not properly shaped, but I’ll let it go for now, and I accidentally broke off the most vertical branch on the whole thing, but that’s also in the middle of the graft so I only lost ¼ of one graft and any new system of of it will be a good variety, 3 grafts on this tree are Enterprise and the rest are possible Honey Crisp, but I haven’t identified that tree correctly yet.

I don’t know why I didn’t straighten it out before, but now I did, it already produced 3 Enterprise apples, 2 were pretty big and one was beautiful, but not shiny, none were shiny this year.

A small branch that cracked, once it heals I’ll pull it back away from that branch.

There on the top you can see the wound where I broke the branch while bending it down and finished it by clipping it off.

[Richard]

In my location, no pruning would mean dedicating 1/16th acre per tree. My lot size is 1/4 acre, with the house occupying a fourth of it. So I’d have to limit myself to three trees. This is unacceptable.

[Trav]

In reality, my version of “no prune” doesn’t mean “never prune” but when the trees are still small and growing, I’m pretty sure that pruning doesn’t get you ahead much, unless you’re creating a shape for your tree, such as delayed open-center, hich I do usually aim at, but not at all perfectly with my older trees, but I found an apple seedling and I think I can stake twist and tie it to a perfect delayed open center with just a few cuts.

[alan]

Pulling branches down is an ancient method to encourage precocity and compact growth of plums, in the literature it is called festooning. For apple trees it is termed the French Axe method, as I recall.

In vigorous trees it is no replacement for pruning, as the branches send up lots of vegetative growth and the point of the bend, if you kept pulling those vegetative shoots down the tree will become excessively shaded by itself reducing fruit quality and encouraging severe rot issues in plums, especially in regions that get a lot a rain during the growing and harvest season.

It is standard procedure to spread branches in apples and pears but usually not to below horizontal. However, I often manage trees to two tiers and will pull down the upper tier in vigorous trees to a drupe to either get the tree into production of to keep the upper tier within boundaries that allow it only half as much spread as the lower tier. That equation is the goal of two and three tier trees (the pyramid or Christmas tree shape that allows the most light on the most bearing surface) but plums are usually trained to an open center. In the humid regions where we fight brown rot, that is the most practical shape. However, there’s nothing wrong with a mushroom shaped reverse open center tree, but you have to prune it. Tying the branches down is also a chore.

[ltilton]

I have an apple tree shaped like that, but the bent-over branches keep sending out vertical watersprouts. Still gotta prune.

[Bogovich]

that bend is dramatic in a cool way. have you ever tried cutting the branches like bonsai? i think kcrooster is the name of the account, they showed pics demonstrating. ill try to find the comments.

Here it is. I think you’d like this method.

Question about pruning AC Harrow Sweet grafted to Seckel pear on OHxF87

Here are 2 methods of hinging. First way is to make cuts part way(1/3-1/2) into the top of the branch with a knife and then start pulling the brach down slowly and if it is wanting to hinge only on one or two the cuts, deepen the cut(s) that aren’t wanting to hinge. Then you can wrap the the cuts with grafting tape for a faster healing and to keep it from breaking there. [20260819_105241] [20260819_105324] [20260819_105356] The second method, you have to be more careful with breaking it, u…

[Joao]

yeah the watersprout problem is real, tied down a few apple branches a couple years back and ended up going back in midsummer just to remove all the uprights anyway. Still worth doing for getting earlier fruit but it’s more like delaying the pruning than avoiding it.

[Bdav]

I’m in the process of converting a couple of my three year-old apple trees to vertical axis. Just install my 10 foot piece of conduit I don’t think not pruning or not having a defined width limit will work for me. I need something that’s easy to maintain. I have 4 foot plastic border circles filled with cardboard and wood chips now making it easy to mow for my lawn guys. I have plenty of room so increasing to 6 foot is not a problem. Anyway, there seems to be real evidence that tying them down will increase production quicker and that’s my goal. Thanks

[alan]

For apples in decent soil, the only way to meaningfully reduce pruning and keep the tree in a practical shape for fruit production is to run with dwarfing rootstocks. The same thing is true of plums, but the size reducing rootstocks may shorten the lifespan of plums who already live much shorter lives than apples grown on free-standing rootstock. At least, that is my experience, although 20 years of managing trees on Citation at one orchard I used to manage didn’t lead to higher mortality for them over trees on myro. The problem with the comparison is that the two rootstocks didn’t have the same varieties on them. In my own orchard it is quicker for me to establish trees that are on Myro- I don’t irrigate and they just grow and plug in faster- but Dave Wilson pluots aren’t usually available on myro. When I find one that works well here I like to graft it onto a myro based tree. .

[ltilton]

I prune after harvest - if I get a harvest.